The fight about wine… and oil

I justified my trip from Chablis to Sablet in May and June by saying that I wasn’t doing it to taste some of the world’s best wine. I was just studying the global battle between wines that come from a place and wines that could have been made anywhere; terroir wines vs marketing ones. But I also discovered another issue almost as controversial.

The Solex’s two-stroke motor needs special fuel. In the old days you’d just putter up to the bowser and take it from there. Now, though, you have to mix it up yourself.

A real gas guzzler

« Put in four percent of mineral oil. Just add it to unleaded petrol, » said the fellow who sold it to me.
« Bullshit, » said Philippe, a regular at the Sablet pizza bar. « It must be synthetic. Four percent is OK. »
« Mineral or synthetic, both are OK, but you need lead additive, » the fellow at the Chablis service station told me.
« And how much did you pay for that? » a bikie at the Chablis cafe asked me. « Lead’s only for four-stroke cars. Three or four percent of oil, that’s enough. »

A month later I ran into a fellow in a cafe in Beaujolais who said it should never be more than 2%, otherwise the engine gets calamineux.
“What’s so calamitous about it?”
“The inside gets calamined.”
“Calamitied?”
“Yes, with calamine.”
I’d just learned the French word for soot.

Back in Provence the other day I bumped into an old lady. She had a black Solex, an older model. It was there, embossed on the petrol cap: « 2% ». After a thousand kilometres at 4%, I may have to remove the calamity from my Solex.